Sous vide steak with Epoisse sauce

So up till now I've been extolling the virtues of keeping it simple and making life easy in the kitchen, but now and again I like to mix it up a little.

Now I don't have a large water bath but what I do have is a small item called a Sansaire, you clip it onto the side of a large pan filled with water and it regulates the temperature and circulates the water. When researching sous vide cooking, I looked at guidelines from several professional and academic websites before settling on the guidelines from the Douglas Baldwin website. I have found his guidelines a tad more practical on this website than the ones in the Modernist Cuisine book, which I have at home. For quick reference, the core temperatures are 49 - 50c - rare, 55c - medium rare, 60c - medium, 65c - well done. If using the methods outlined by Douglas Baldwin you will need to be able to measure the thickness of the steak, this dictates the cooking time needed.

49c - 50c is the temperature at which collagen will start to break down in meat. Any lower than this and all you are doing is just warming the meat up in warm water. The end result being, it has no impact on the collagen breakdown, therefore no impact on the tenderness of the meat.

I also vacuum packed the steak to prepare it for water bathing (tip; double seal the edges, this ensures the seals won't break when sous viding). So it was just a matter of getting the water to the correct temperature, in this case I wanted rare at 50c. Below the temp states 49.5 but during the cooking process the temp can fluctuate a little. I keep track of this by measuring the water temp with a thermapen to ensure it doesn't move too much.

Once I had finished sous viding the steak, I removed it from the vacuum packing and seasoned it simply with maldon sea salt and pepper. I then cooked it at 300c directly on my big green egg for 30 seconds each side to get a good sear.

I like to serve my steak with a traditional Burgundian epoisse sauce.

Epoisses Sauce100ml double cream100g Epoisse20g unsalted butter Salt and pepper to tasteFew sprigs tarragon to garnishHeat the cream over a medium heat.Slice the cheese and add to the pan and stir until it has melted into the creamAt this point add any meat juices from the rested meat if you intend to use themTurn off the heat and add the butter and season to taste.I like to serve this with the following side dishHawksmoor Roast mushroomsThis recipe is taken from the Hawksmoor at Home cook bookParsleyThymePortobello mushroomsFew splashes worcestershire sauceOlive oil20g butter dotted on the mushroomsSalt and PepperPlace all ingredients in a roasting tray and cook at 150 celsuis for 20 mins.